Shareholders change the world

Follow This is a group of responsible shareholders in oil and gas companies. We organise shareholder support for oil and gas companies to commit to the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees C.

Follow This files new shareholder resolution (attached)
We anticipate support of Shell and its shareholders for […]

Our mission

Follow This is a group of responsible shareholders in Shell. We support Shell to take leadership in the energy transition to a net-zero-emission energy system. We therefore organise shareholder support for the climate resolution “Shareholders support Shell to align its targets with the Paris Climate Agreement”.

Why Shell?

Shell currently earns billions from oil and gas. We would like to see the company stop investing in more oil and gas sources and opt for new sources of energy instead. When one of the largest energy companies in the world comes out in full support of sustainable energy, the transition will go much faster. What’s more, Shell maintains its leading role in energy supply. Let’s ensure that we can be proud of the biggest company in the Netherlands.

Green shareholders

On the agenda of Shell's shareholders meeting in May: Shell will take leadership in the energy transition

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Shareholders

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Why?

How many arguments do you need?

New energy is clean and healthy

Imagine your city without exhaust fumes, Groningen without earthquakes, Nigeria or the Gulf of Mexico without oil pollution. Solar energy is clean and healthy.

New energy abounds

The sun provides us with enough energy each hour to keep the entire world’s economy going for a year. More than enough to provide energy to a world population of 9 billion in 2050.

New energy gets cheaper and cheaper

Soon, solar energy will be cheaper than oil, gas and coal. What would you invest your money in? In technology that is getting cheaper and cheaper, or in natural resources that keep getting more expensive.

New energy belongs to everyone

The sun shines on all of us, and the wind blows around us. All of our seas ebb and flow, and all our rivers run. There is warmth in every corner of the earth. New energy is in abundance, while oil, gas and coal are only found in some places, such as in the Middle East and Russia.

Fossil energy finances oil dictators and oil wars

More than half of the Russian government’s revenue comes from oil and gas. Once Putin no longer has that source of income, he won’t have the money to keep corrupt officials and businessmen happy and wage war in Ukraine.

The advancement of the Islamic State (ISIL) in the Middle East is financed with oil dollars.

Oil keeps getting more and more expensive

In earlier times, you drilled a hole in the ground and oil spurted out. When it stopped happening automatically, you pumped it up with a pumpjack. Nowadays, oil companies have to dig kilometers into increasingly inhospitable territory (the ocean bottom, the North Pole) and use extreme methods such as fracking to get oil out of the ground.

Instead of digging deeper and deeper and using increasingly invasive methods, energy companies could choose a much more elegant way of producing energy; sun, wind, water and geothermal energy are all viable and sustainable alternatives.

New energy is good for your retirement

A great deal of your retirement fund is held up in the shares of Shell and other fossil fuel companies. If those companies don’t make a timely switch to sustainable energy, all those shares are rendered worthless. Especially if you don’t need your retirement fund for 20 years, the money can best be invested in an energy company of the future. We make sure that your retirement fund gets invested in that kind of company, the kind that we’d like Shell to become.

New energy is good for Shell

A company that hopes to exist in the long term has to focus on the future, instead of just the next quarter’s results. It will have to adapt to a rapidly changing world.

The future of energy supply is clear: it’s a sustainable one. This is why Shell’s future is also clear: become a sustainable energy company or go under. When Shell has shareholders who look toward the coming 15 years instead of just the next quarter, it will be able to look at the long term and concentrate on sustainability. Follow This provides Shell with long-term shareholders.

We’re not asking Shell to stop with fossil fuel right away. We’re advising Shell to use its existing oil and gas sources to make as much profit as possible, while it still can. We’re only advising to invest its profits in sustainable energy instead of more fossil energy. This way, Shell can make the switch. To put it in business terms, take the revenue from the cash cows and invest it in new sources of income instead of the same old cash cows.

Companies that don’t look toward the future are bound for failure. If Kodak had made the switch to digital photography in time, if Nokia or Blackberry had developed a smartphone, if the electrical giants had built wind turbines instead of coal-fired power stations, they may have never fallen on rough times.

follow this | Change the world: buy Shell

Follow this wants to make the world sustainable quicker by making Shell a renewable energy company. We can achieve this by becoming shareholders in droves and to unite existing shareholders (like pension funds) behind this goal. Until Shell feels enough support to change course.